Tuesday Storytime: Confused Animals

This week we had a set of very confused (but helpful) animals.

The Giant Jumperee
Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury
ISBN: 9780735227972
A series of animals are scared in turn by a scary creature who has taken over a burrow; threatening each of them in JUUUST the right way to make them too scared to even LOOK at the obviously scary creature. But Mama Frog is made of tougher stuff (and she's probably got an inside track on who it is anyway) and she marches right in no matter what the creature says. A fun story, and it's cute to have all the "tricked" animals laughing and "in" on the joke instead of upset.

Cock-A-Doodle-Moo!
Bernard Most
ISBN: 0152012524
Cockerel has a sore throat, so the cow has offered to help him out by waking everyone in the morning with the signature CockADoodleDoo! - But Cow isn't really good with languages, so he's having some trouble getting the crow just right. With a lot of trial and error (lots of funny errors) the cow eventually gets it close enough to manage, just in time for Cockerel to feel better after all.

The Thingamabob
Il Sung Na
ISBN: 9780375961069
A lonely elephant finds an interesting Thingamabob, and he quite enjoys playing with it and hanging around with it, even though he has NO CLUE what it's supposed to be or do. He and an assortment of animal cameos make various suggestions for uses, but they all fall through, until it starts to rain, and the Thingamabob suddenly makes perfect sense.

Tuesday Storytime: For the Birds

These were selected by my coworker.

Crow Made a Friend
Margaret Peot
ISBN: 9780823432974
Rainbow-colored Crow makes a friend from sticks, then snow, but they don't last - true friendship comes from a mate and eventual nestlings.

That is NOT a Good Idea
Mo Willems
ISBN: 9780062203090
Willems' parody take on nursery rhyme stories has a Greek Chorus of baby chicks intoning all the bad plans along the way, with a "twist" ending.

A Book of Babies
Il Sung Na
ISBN: 9780385752909
All sorts of animal babies included, but ducklings are front and center.

Tuesday Storytime: Beary Good Friends

My co-storyteller's picks this time, with two that I've done myself before, or at least considered using.  Really sweet and cute books. We're back to picking very short and very straightforward reads since our audience has shrunk in both size and age with school snatching away all our older ones.

Bird, Balloon, Bear
Il Sung Na
ISBN: 9780399551567
Bird hopes to be friends with Bear, but Bear already has a good friend: a balloon. Bird watches as they play together happily, but eventually all Chekov's balloons must pop, and new friends made.


Good Luck Bear
Greg Foley
ISBN: 9780670062584
Bear is looking for a four-leaf clover, and has no luck at all. He's feeling quite unlucky, in fact, until his friend Mouse returns with a message of friendship and of finding the unexpected.

Bear and Bee: Too Busy
Sergio Ruzzier
ISBN: 9781423159612
Bear and Bee join forces again in this sequel book (Bear and Bee was a quirky story about prejudice and fears) to have a light-hearted discussion about the concept of doing things that you perhaps don't super enjoy yourself, simply because you want to be with the person doing them, and you enjoy helping the person enjoy the activity. Hard concept for kids and adults, and it's a hard slog for the Bear and Bee too, but they make it work out in the end.